Monday, February 16, 2009
Fine Dining
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Job Responsibilities
Brand Manager
Responsibilities:
* Accountable for the profitability of assigned brand/s
* Formulates strategies and plans for the brand/s based on sales, marketing, and merchandising objectives
* Oversees brand performance through periodic sales and inventory analysis, product review, and market research
* Conceptualizes, implements, and evaluates marketing activities and events
* Leads product selection for season buys and ensures purchases are within set budget
* Establishes new channels of distribution for the brand
I got this info somewhere. Somehow, I was surprised that I am actually doing them already. As you can read from my earlier posts, I wasn;t given any idea on what a Brand Associate or Manager does. But in a way, in a span of two weeks, I was able to
1. Analyse the FS
2. Formulate strategies
3. Coordinate with upcoming events
4. Establish/Propose Future or new distribution channels for my brand
5. Feedback from consumers and influencers
6. Act on problems or issues and brainstorm or analyse them.
Haha seems like I am somehow ready and prepared for the corporate and real world after all despite obstacles or deficiencies in training and experience. =)
Friday, February 13, 2009
My first job
If it not were for the efficiency and productivity of the company, it would not have been able to sell in foreign countries and grow into a multi-million company in just a short span of 3.5 years. The boss and his wife is charismatic, while everyone is young. Country managers as young as 21 or 22 are being sent abroad alone without much training and any language proficiency. Much like Kamikaze warriors. Nowhere else can you find a company entrusting tis future to young and energetic people, having truly innovative and out of the box ideasand brands and requires its employees to read at least 2 books a month. Not some boring book but among the best collection of solid and insightful books.
It was unfortunate for me to enter at a time two employees are resigning, in effect turning the responsibilities over to me. You don't expect to be spoon-fed and have formal orientation or even training. That's what happened to me this past days. I was expected to absorb their eight months and one and a half year experience, respectively in the course of less than two weeks. No complaints for me, although i have wished there were some formal training and assistants. Some of them have actually resigned, and I pity them although I respect their choices. Anyway, it's better than being a bum after graduation or having no hard to find learning opportunities. Nowhere can you find the boss being a mentor and a company willing to reveal past, present and future secrets of the business world and entrusting you with power and responsibility at such a young age, and as a fresh-entry sarariman. They don't care if you will just resign and lose their training efforts. They only care about inspiring. As Richard Branson said, " I felt that I could make a difference. That's the best reason to go into business."
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Positive Comments about the Philippines
“Oh, I absolutely love the Philippines. I’ve been all over the world and I tell you, the Philippines is the best. Absolutely the best. I’ve been living there now for two and a half years and I absolutely love it. If you go to Rockwell, Greenbelt, or the Fort, it’s like Singapore. In fact, it’s even better, because you can get a good beer for 1.5 Singapore dollars in any of the top bars there. A bottle of beer in Singapore can cost you up to 10 Singapore dollars. It’s crazy. The best areas — Fort, Rockwell, and Greenbelt — are clean and the people are disciplined. If you throw a piece of trash in the Fort or Rockwell, you’ll almost feel guilty. It’s spotless. And they’re booming, too. If you leave the country for a month, when you come back, you can see the difference in the development. You’d stop and say, ‘Hey, that’s a new building. Where did that come from?’ Plus, the people are great. I have 20 Filipinos working for me, and they’re the best. Great attitude. They hardly complain. They just work, and they know how to take life in stride. I have a guy who takes public transportation. He lines up for a bus, and the line is a mile long. Sometimes I just want to cry, seeing these people go through that inconvenience. And yet, that worker of mine is happy — always cheerful. And when you take them out, say, for a happy-hour session, they always know how to have fun. Filipinos love to sing, and they can sing their troubles away. They’re just an amazing bunch of people. And have I mentioned the beaches? Boy, that’s another thing altogether. The Philippines has the best beaches in the world. And Baguio — wow, what a great place…”
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=436552&publicationSubCategoryId=82
One more reason to love the country. And I'm happy I am working for a Global-minded Filipino company.
请星巴克从故宫里出去
What Life Asks of Us
A few years ago, a faculty committee at Harvard produced a report on the purpose of education. "The aim of a liberal education" the report declared, "is to unsettle presumptions, to defamiliarize the familiar, to reveal what is going on beneath and behind appearances, to disorient young people and to help them to find ways to reorient themselves."
The report implied an entire way of living. Individuals should learn to think for themselves. They should be skeptical of pre-existing arrangements. They should break free from the way they were raised, examine life from the outside and discover their own values.
This approach is deeply consistent with the individualism of modern culture, with its emphasis on personal inquiry, personal self-discovery and personal happiness. But there is another, older way of living, and it was discussed in a neglected book that came out last summer called "On Thinking Institutionally" by the political scientist Hugh Heclo.
In this way of living, to borrow an old phrase, we are not defined by what we ask of life. We are defined by what life asks of us. As we go through life, we travel through institutions — first family and school, then the institutions of a profession or a craft.
Each of these institutions comes with certain rules and obligations that tell us how to do what we're supposed to do. Journalism imposes habits that help reporters keep a mental distance from those they cover. Scientists have obligations to the community of researchers. In the process of absorbing the rules of the institutions we inhabit, we become who we are.
New generations don't invent institutional practices. These practices are passed down and evolve. So the institutionalist has a deep reverence for those who came before and built up the rules that he has temporarily taken delivery of. "In taking delivery," Heclo writes, "institutionalists see themselves as debtors who owe something, not creditors to whom something is owed."
The rules of a profession or an institution are not like traffic regulations. They are deeply woven into the identity of the people who practice them. A teacher's relationship to the craft of teaching, an athlete's relationship to her sport, a farmer's relation to her land is not an individual choice that can be easily reversed when psychic losses exceed psychic profits. Her social function defines who she is. The connection is more like a covenant. There will be many long periods when you put more into your institutions than you get out.
In 2005, Ryne Sandberg was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame. Heclo cites his speech as an example of how people talk when they are defined by their devotion to an institution:
"I was in awe every time I walked onto the field. That's respect. I was taught you never, ever disrespect your opponents or your teammates or your organization or your manager and never, ever your uniform. You make a great play, act like you've done it before; get a big hit, look for the third base coach and get ready to run the bases."
Sandberg motioned to those inducted before him, "These guys sitting up here did not pave the way for the rest of us so that players could swing for the fences every time up and forget how to move a runner over to third. It's disrespectful to them, to you and to the game of baseball that we all played growing up.
"Respect. A lot of people say this honor validates my career, but I didn't work hard for validation. I didn't play the game right because I saw a reward at the end of the tunnel. I played it right because that's what you're supposed to do, play it right and with respect ... . If this validates anything, it's that guys who taught me the game ... did what they were supposed to do, and I did what I was supposed to do."
I thought it worth devoting a column to institutional thinking because I try to keep a list of the people in public life I admire most. Invariably, the people who make that list have subjugated themselves to their profession, social function or institution.
Second, institutional thinking is eroding. Faith in all institutions, including charities, has declined precipitously over the past generation, not only in the U.S. but around the world. Lack of institutional awareness has bred cynicism and undermined habits of behavior. Bankers, for example, used to have a code that made them a bit stodgy and which held them up for ridicule in movies like "Mary Poppins." But the banker's code has eroded, and the result was not liberation but self-destruction.
Institutions do all the things that are supposed to be bad. They impede personal exploration. They enforce conformity.
But they often save us from our weaknesses and give meaning to life.